


writ on skin like a sonnet

by doubtthestars



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, Pre-Poly, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 12:23:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3977887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubtthestars/pseuds/doubtthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toni doesn’t think there’s anyone in the world that James could not bond with once they meet him. Their marks are a contrast of color. His is the morning sky, bright blue with just a hint of a purple-lilac. James’ is twilight, indigo and dark blue with streaks of silver. It’s possibly the prettiest bondmark he’s ever produced on another person and he doesn’t really know what to make of it. </p><p>Soulmate AU with a twist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	writ on skin like a sonnet

**Author's Note:**

> still fiddling around with these ships but hey, you're welcome to the fruits of my labor.

He avoids touching the luminescent script that reminded Toni of catching sunset at a park back home, bold against Cris’ calf. They’ve paired up for exercises and stretches. He leans back and catches the only part of the phrase he can decipher, _Deus_.

Cris has a peculiar face on that spelled amusement and annoyance wrapped into one. “It’s not going to hurt you.” Toni is reminded they share words too, but he’d been raised to not stare and definitely not ask after other people’s bondmarks. The jewel-colored words wrapped around his elbow seem to taunt him, _Keep from fear as you walk on greater paths_

“I already told you Marcelo’s and you didn’t combust.” Toni rolls his eyes. Propriety was definitely a foreign concept on this team. That had been an accident entirely. Marcelo and Cris always said a particular phrase in Portuguese in greeting and he was curious. He didn’t know it was their words. 

“That’s different. This one is,” he hesitates, trying to find the right way to say more alive, something deeper than the obvious, “brighter.” It’s not exactly that, all of Cristiano’s bondmarks are bright and strongly anchored. The only one greyed out and thickly warped like a knotted scar was the one belonging to his father and that was a subject understood. 

The one on his calf is like Gareth’s, almost seeking attention on Cris’ body but not exactly. It is between the subtlety of Fabio’s and the obnoxious of Gareth’s. Toni is uncomfortable with the train of thought, clearly he’s spent too much time on it. 

It’s not like he’s quietly filed away the similarities of his teammate’s marks. They had a lot in common, that wasn’t surprising. What was, is the amount of marks he’s accumulated from being around them.

“I’m not a secret-keeper. If you want to ask, ask.” They get up at the whistle. Toni doesn’t ask, but he still wonders.

Toni doesn’t think there’s anyone in the world that James could not bond with once they meet him. Their marks are a contrast of color. His is the morning sky, bright blue with just a hint of a purple-lilac. James’ is twilight, indigo and dark blue with streaks of silver. It’s possibly the prettiest bondmark he’s ever produced on another person and he doesn’t really know what to make of it. 

“Is jealousy a foreign concept to you or are you a robot?” Gareth sits down next to him, taking up more space on the bench than necessary. 

“It would be exhausting to try, no one gets the meaning of personal space here, but no, I’m not.” He pointedly shifts his knee that is pressed to the Welshman’s own. Toni is slowly getting into the groove of things in Madrid, but the _obsession_ over him and James is getting old. 

“Not even a bit?” Isco laughs brightly at whatever James is saying and mimes something with a show of hands that makes James shout loud enough to catch attention. Luka shakes his head at the two and crosses his arms when Isco runs around him to shield himself from the Colombian. 

“Not like that.” Toni takes a swig of water. Gareth hums. 

Jealousy is easy to dismiss, but envy is a different story. Toni is plenty envious of James and his easy-going, heart on his sleeve nature, but he knows that’s not what Gareth or any of them want to hear. His friendship with James is natural, born of being the two newcomers on a team that has a big name and bigger expectations.

It’s easy to lean on James, but he doesn’t know how easy it is for James to lean on him. He doesn’t want to cling onto him without offering something of his own.

 _the world pushes against you, within, there is always something stronger_

_in the midst of winter, find an invincible heart, summer inside your soul_

Toni doesn’t know what to make of it at all.

The first time they really talk, Isco makes fun of his hair. Toni doesn’t get offended, but resists the urge to push it back with his fingers and try again to make this first-third impression work in his favor. 

“You’re quiet.” Toni’s spanish is underwhelming and he doesn’t want to inflict it on anybody but James and Sami.

“I _can_ talk. It’s difficult.” Isco makes a face between cry me a river and impressed that he’s said five words beyond a greeting. Something in Toni is eager to make an impression on the younger man. It is worse than when Cris showed him around or when Marcelo tried to include him into a joke. 

“Try some more.” Isco is abrupt, straight to the point. Without practice, he wouldn’t get anywhere. A trickle of ice sweeps down the nerves of his spine as Isco leaves. 

The next morning he finds his shoulders itch uncontrollably. He asks Sami to look at it, if he needed to get some medical attention, he’d rather get a trusted opinion. Sami inhales sharply, Toni panics.

“What is it?” 

“Do you have another mirror?” Sami asks all too calmly after his previous reaction. Toni turns, catches red at the angle but can’t read the words. Oh, he thinks, absently directing Sami to get the long mirror in his closet. He twists again, but slides into some mental fog of awe and disbelief. Below his neck, a line of red-orange-blue like fire meeting ice. He doesn’t know what it says, can’t read it and Sami is outside the door to give him the privacy to take it in. 

He calls James. 

“Wow,” is his first reaction. He touches it and Toni shivers slightly. James writes it down first, carefully straightening out his handwriting to be more legible. Toni starts feeding it into a translator app on his phone to keep himself busy. 

“Quiero las cosas que me destruirán, hasta que me levante consumido en amor” James repeats the words, and Toni’s brain doesn’t like the way it sounds, doesn’t like ‘destroy, consume and love’ all put together. 

The translation is shoddy, out of order, but he understands.

 _I desire the things that will destroy me until I rise consumed in love._ James stays with him, even though it is their first day off in weeks. Toni doesn’t get the words, but he repeats them over and over until he can say them without fault.

“We should do something?” James shrugs a shoulder up and down, looking serious even as his tone slants and reveals his uncertainty. 

Toni picks at the steamed vegetables on his plate. James presses his thumb into the dip of his ankle. It reminds him of a little blind girl in his primary school, she would follow her aide with the mark of a ladybug, no bigger than a nail and raised like a scar on her hand. 

“Toni,” He sets his plate down.

“Do you like me, James?” His brown eyes crinkle at the edges, a smile edging its way on his face, overtaking the worry of the last hour. 

“Of course,” Claro, clearly, yes. Toni moves, springs and traps him between the armrest and his body. James doesn’t lean away, instead spreading his fingers on the collar of his tshirt, not grabbing to pull him or push him away, just there, steadying against his pulse.

“Do you like Isco?” Being so close, he can tell all the minute changes that take place as the words leave his mouth. He doesn’t know what he’s doing but it feels like breaking surface, getting closer to whatever is right in universal standings. Toni hovers, waiting for an answer.

“Yes,” It locks in place a puzzle, slides the missing piece right in. The knowledge makes the air heavier and Toni descends, following gravity. 

Isco’s words on James are on his chest. They ripple when he takes a breath. The colors are a combination that shouldn’t make sense but Toni is drawing his own conclusions, meditating on the why and hows of this inexplicable thing between them. A pale yellow that fades into a myriad of blues.

“Ven, calma los mares dentro de mi.” Short, but brilliant. James was a work of art, with all the words on his skin, but Toni didn’t expect anything less from the golden boy of Colombia. 

Being with James was like relearning his body which had the unexpected bonus of taking his mind off his newest bondmark or rather focus on it without the danger of falling under a sea of roiling emotion to just pure want.

“What are we going to do?” James asks, hanging onto his side. His bed is not huge, but it could fit another person if they squeezed in. Toni plans to fill that space.

In true Isco fashion, he puts a wrench into everything by avoiding Toni for the next few days. No matter what he tries, Isco is a step ahead.

He even recruited Iker and Sergio to keep Toni away. 

“You have to know that Isco doesn’t want to talk by now.” Sergio is somewhat gentle about it and Iker is definitely not. Toni is all around frustrated.

“Whatever you did or didn’t do, he’ll come around in his own time.” with the patent stern father-figure look Iker excels at. Toni spends more than fifteen minutes trying to tell them in failing, aggravated spanish that it was a miscommunication.

Because everyone on the team seemed to have a radar for the relationship between James and him and Isco had ducked out since they went to training the morning after.

James refuses to escalate things by cornering Isco himself. 

“He doesn’t have a problem talking to me, if I bring it up, it would turn uglier.” Toni rests his head on the cool wall, waiting to get his rational, sensible side back. He knows James is right of course, but the phantom itch of his shoulders tells him otherwise. The words feel ominous.

“So you’ll let him think he’s right in whatever he believes about us, about not wanting him?” James lays a hand on his back, rubs circles to calm him down.

“No,” quiet but determined, “we let him come to us when he’s ready.” Toni breathes, shakes off his tension. James lets go. Toni turns around, getting ready to kiss him.

“Then we show him?” James nods, reaching up. Chicha walks in and swears before apologizing with a grin. Toni just hopes he hasn’t somehow snapped a picture of them as they spring apart. Their flushed faces already damning enough evidence.

The Friday before their next game. Isco come up to him like nothing had changed.

“Mind if I ask you something?” Toni nods, a little stunned, then verbalizes to make it clear he doesn’t mind.

“Ask away.” Isco smiles but it’s a lot more bravado and less genuine joy. 

“Can you tell me what this says?” He sticks his phone in his face, open to the notes app. It’s german and Toni knows it has to be his words. He would rather see them on skin then in black font but he doesn’t push. 

“I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart.” He translates, trying to keep steady. He desperately wishes James were here and not in his rehab hour because that hot surging panic is rising again and he doesn’t know what to do when Isco’s face falls.

“Okay, that’s what I thought.” He’s much quieter, withdrawn. _Show him._

“Wait, wait, don’t you want to know what yours says?” Toni halts him in his tracks. He clenches his jaw, hoping. Isco turns but doesn’t come closer. The distance is negligible but Toni still feels it like a canyon or a ocean. 

He takes off his shirt. Isco puts his hands up like that would make him stop.

“What,” He turns his back towards him and _knows_ when Isco realizes it’s not all bad. If James is their anchor, then they are the push and pull of waves, tumultuous but of the same kind. 

“Oh.” Toni smiles, too giddy to control it. 

“Do you...” Isco starts his question, but also reaches out to touch the mark which threatens to buckle Toni’s knees. Heat dances through his nervous system and it would be a terrible idea to back Isco up into the wall of the hallway without James knowing. 

“What?” Toni asks when the rush of blood stops deafening his ears. 

“Do you know what it mean?” Isco asks again. Toni holds onto his shirt, bunched up in front of his shorts. How was he going to survive the rest of the day.

“Yes,” he puts down the idea of getting Isco to say it for him, because then he would give in to baser needs and not care about anyone seeing them in the hallway and James. James was definitely something they needed to clear before getting into any compromising situations.

Their teammates were going to riot and never let Toni live it down. Jesus.

“So what do we do?” Isco leaves it in his hands, but Toni now knows exactly what he wants.

**Author's Note:**

> this AU has been rolling around in my head for months, finally decided to do something with it. I could do a second chapter if it's not completely ??? trash.
> 
> Forgive my timeline because I doubt it makes any sense. All the bondmark phrases are taken from various sources: Albert Camus, Jorge Luis Borges, Slyvia Plath, and poetry on tumblr. the only direct quote is Isco's coming from Borges, everyone else's is a jumble or my own take on it.
> 
> Anyway, feedback is a blessing, please leave a comment.


End file.
